There are plenty of situations where telling a lie can be beneficial, but it hardly matters if you suck at lying. If you want to be convincing, focus on eliminating the mental lag that makes your answers take longer.

The first evil skill I acquired was subterfuge. Trying to deceive my parents is one of my earliest memories. I escaped from my crib by removing one of its loose bars and then, after climbing out, put the bar back in—as if to trick my parents that I was still in there.

Getting rid of your tells is hard to do, assuming you even know what they are. If you want to be a better liar, however, you can create a fake tell so others can’t figure out when you’re actually lying.

Whether you’re trying to finagle the truth from a teenager or you suspect a friend is fabricating a story, catching someone in a lie takes a bit of effort. Scientific American took a look at military interrogation tactics to see what works in everyday life and found asking left-field questions is a good way to trip up…

It can be easy to lie—especially when you're trying to stay out of trouble or avoid confrontation—but it can catch up with you. If you have trouble sticking to the truth, imagine each lie you tell as a charge on an imaginary truth credit card.

Not every lie is bad. Some lies keep people happy, and keep our relationships strong. Whether you're keeping a close friend's secret or telling our mother we love the sweater she knitted us, even if we don't really like it, some lies are necessary—even helpful. Before you lie, though, ask yourself a few questions to…

Nothing sucks more than having a gadget break down and finding out it'll cost hundreds of dollars to fix. Don't have the cash to spend on a repair? Here are some tricks for fixing it even if your warranty doesn't apply.

Lying is considered a bad thing, but ask anyone to justify a lie they've told and they probably can. When and where you should lie is your call, but if you have to do it, here's how to do it effectively.

Catching a liar in person usually just means looking for a variety of nonverbal cues, but that's not as easy when it's written in a text message or email. For that, The Wall Street Journal suggests looking for subtle changes in how someone words things.

You can never prove someone is lying just by looking at non-verbal cues—but they can let you know when something might be off. David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, conducted a thorough study and found four non-verbal indicators you might want to look for.

We all know that our willpower gets drained as the day goes on, but it turns out that as we get more tired, we lose all kinds of faculties. As Scientific American points out, that might have an effect on whether or not we tell the truth.

There are a number of virtues we consider the hallmarks of “the hero:” honesty, justice, bravery, and so forth. We instill these values in younger people, as parents and teachers; we inscribe them in institutions and within ethics. Indeed, there is an entire rich moral system, commonly known as Virtue Ethics, which…